Social Innovation

“Lenny Mendonca and I cofounded FUSE corps in 2012, a nonprofit that places talented entrepreneurial leaders inside mayors’ offices for a one year fellowship. (Some call FUSE “The White House Fellowship for the grassroots”).

Thanks to a great team, FUSE has become one of the fastest growing social ventures in America, growing from 5 to 16 fellows in 2015, and to 40 fellows in 2017, tackling everything from developing a strategy and plan to combat widespread urban blight in Los Angeles to reinventing library usage — and with tens of millions of dollars in measurable results to date. With a robust business model supported by cities thirsty for top entrepreneurial talent, FUSE is primed for national scaling to 100 fellows in mayors’ offices around America over the next few years, going towards even more audacious goals beyond that.”

New America was founded in 1999 to nurture a new generation of public intellectuals – scholars, policy experts, and journalists who could address major social, economic, and political challenges in ways that would engage the public at large — and to provide a set of blueprints for American renewal in an era of globalization and digitization. The initial challenge, which continues today, was to find the minds and foster the debates needed to guide American renewal in an era of profound, exhilarating, but often threatening change.